There's been a great deal of outcry recently over a Facebook page called "Your Tattoos Make You A Horrible Mother," with the description: "Have you ever seen a tattooed woman holding a baby and think, 'How in the heck is that child going to stay off drugs and out of jail?' So have we." It then goes on to say that a dude named Ron is researching "tattoo ink as a teratogen, which negatively affects child development both in and out of utero."

As I've noted in prior posts, like "Never Read (or post) The Comments" and "Tattoo Like Farms," pages with inflammatory titles and statements, such as tattoos making bad moms, are designed to drag us in, make us angry with
asinine writing, and provoke us to comment on the article, defending
something that is personal and important to us -- all the while, collecting Likes, comments, hits, and even media attention that make the author and the site/page popular, and thereby, more marketable.

And so I just ignore them because, really, in the history of the Internet, not even the most thoughtful comment has changed the opinion of a dumbass, especially a troll.

So why post it on the blog today? Well, in just the past couple of weeks, many, many people have sent me the link to the Facebook page because of their concern over the "Fetal Ink Syndrome (FIS)" claim that tattoos can lead to autism, developmental abnormalities, etc. "Ron" claimed that "FIS" was written about in an October 2007 JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) article.

Thankfully, I didn't have to dig much further than Snopes.com to address those concerns, which notes: "No such article was posted in JAMA in 2007 (or at any other point), and the only mentions of "Fetal Ink Syndrome" that appear on the Internet originated primarily after the "Your Tattoos Make You a Horrible Mother" page gained attention. Snopes also thinks that the page is satirical, despite many taking it seriously.

The best way to deal with "Your Tattoos Make You A Horrible Mother" and other sites: pretend they don't exist and spend your time being being excellent rather than indignant. Don't feed the trolls.

The meteoric media attention to tattooing is making a lot of people, a lot of money. And many of those people don't have a single tattoo. When tattoo polls make claims like "one in five U.S. adults has at least one tattoo," that's a significant market to be tapped.

We are passionate about tattoos. We get excited to view beautiful work and pissed off when the art is denigrated. This passion = $$ in the eyes of those seeking "eyeballs" for their websites, TV shows, magazines, and sales outlets.

Back in October, we talked about tattoo "Like farms." Those are often the tattoo "fan" pages with the billion "Likes" on
Facebook, where you'll find beautiful tattoos but without any information
on the artist, photographer, or collector. The tattoos are used to draw us in and then throw ad links to merch, apps, and services.

The flip side to this is what I see as the "Dislike" hook: tricks like "click-baiting," with headlines such as "Tattoos are Corny and Degrading," designed to drag us in, make us angry with asinine writing, and provoke us to comment on the article, defending something that is personal and important to us. It brings more clicks, more time on the site, and more interactivity. Editors and advertisers just love how much we hate it.

Back in my early days of blogging (over 10 years ago), I used to call these articles out, and even comment on them in the hopes of trying to change someone's mind with, what I believed to be, rational thought. I no longer do that. Because, in the history of the Internet, no one has ever won in a comment war.

Which brings me to the old Internet adage: Never read the comments. We already know all the tattoo cliches that are out there, so we don't need to lose faith in humanity with a constant reminder. The Washington Post has a great article on getting rid of comments sections. Alexandra Petri writes:

"We have this mistaken idea that some things are up for debate that frankly are not actually up for debate. People may disagree on them, but the only reason that they disagree is that, well, some of these people are wrong. You do not have to give people who are objectively incorrect equal time."

This is not only true for science articles, but for any article that entices small minded people and their prejudices to interrupt serious discourse within a community.

We got rid of the comments to this blog a while back and moved the discussion to our Facebook group and my Twitter feed, where there's less anonymity, and thus, greater civility. I love thoughtful debates and sharing of ideas, which is what makes social media so great. But let's keep it on our terms, and ignore the mass media comment forums and clickbait.

We've all seen them. Those tattoo "fan" pages with the billion "Likes" on Facebook where you'll find beautiful tattoos but without any information on the artist, photographer, or collector.

Photos of me have popped up on these sites, and I have commented, "That's me. My artist is Dan DiMattia, Calypso Tattoo," but that all gets lost in the barrage of subsequent comments, often asking who did the work because they could not find my attribution. I've gotten tired of them and now simply report their use of my photos to Facebook, particularly because I don't want to be associated -- and even used by -- these sites.

Here's how it works. Someone creates a page and starts posting photos
inspirational quotes or other innocent content. You like the page and it
now shows up regularly in your news feed. Anytime you interact with a
post, that activity shows up in your friends' news feeds.The more likes
the page gets, the more it shows up. The more comments each picture
gets, the more power the page gets in the Facebook news feed
algorithm.And that makes it more and more visible.[...]When the page gets enough fans (a hundred thousand or more)the owner
might start placing ads on the page. Those ads show up in your news
feed. They could be links to an app, a game, or a service they want you
to buy. It could be a "recommendation" for a product on Amazon where the
page owner gets a commission for every purchase made through the link.
Or more nefariously, the page owner could be paid to spread malware by
linking out to sites that install viruses on your computer for the
purposes of identity theft. Bottom line: access to your news feed is lucrative.

I came across the Yahoo News article thanks to Birmingham-based tattoo artist Goldilox, whose work was featured on the Facebook page Myttoo Tattoos & Piercings, without credit and with a caption linking to a clothing line (as shown in the screen capture above). Goldilox then shared with her own many fans how tattoo Like Farms are scamming tattoo fans, and encouraged people to speak out, report these sites to Facebook, and especially Unlike them.

Then the Facebook page "Credit My Work" was created to raise awareness of the issue. Now, that's a site you should like!

It's natural for us to want to follow sites that feature inspiring work, but we should do so only to those who support our community -- not exploit it.